Internship, the first step of the career ladder
On a blissful June morning, I walked along an alluring lane with houses on one side and fields on another and reached a beautiful yellow colored building painted with cartoon characters on its pillars. The kid within me had not stopped celebrating until I realized that this is the very place where I was supposed to start my internship. Anxious and excited, I entered the building the headquarters of Inuxu Digital Media Technologies.
Contrary to my beliefs of the Corporate World, the atmosphere at Inuxu was warm and welcoming. Everyone in the hierarchy, ranging from the CEO to the office boy, had a friendly and humble attitude, this made me a bit relaxed. I was then handed over with an induction manual which I was supposed to be reading before my introduction with the Manager under whose able guidance I had to intern. I was excited about the prospect of being assigned my project for the internship and hence awaited the meeting eagerly.
At around, 11 AM, I met Mr. Shashikant Anpat, Director-Products & Inventory at Inuxu. He assigned me with my project that was concerned with building the end to end strategy for Mobile Advertising along with 14 pointers to research on. “At least elaborate all those pointers to me” being nervous, I said it in my mind but somehow managed to keep my calm and showed no signs of anxiousness. The meeting was then adjourned.
The next three days, I tried working on those pointers and made a mess of a strategy. After three days of struggling with strategy building, I had a meeting with Shashikant and Apurv (Product Manager at Inuxu). After seeing whatever work I had done so far, Shashikant calmly questioned me “Shivani, what is your background?”, to which I answered, “I am a third year Engineering student” he was surprised to know this. Then we figured out that because of some kind of miscommunication, he had mistaken me as an MBA student and gave me the project, assuming that I must be aware of the science of product strategy.
I got nervous when I realized this, I was worried that maybe the project will be taken back from me and I’ll lose a chance to get in-depth knowledge of mobile advertising. But somehow the calm on Shashikant and Apurv’s face made me keep hopes. Both of them calmly elaborated 2 out of those 14 pointers of mobile advertising research to me and asked me to submit the presentation on those two pointers the other day.
I spent the next day researching on the scope and challenges of Mobile Advertising in India and collected a lot of relevant information and gave the presentation to both of them. They were now satisfied with my work and elaborated the next two pointers to me. This went on every day until I was done researching all the pointers of Mobile Advertising. I researched on a lot of points ranging from ‘Ways to do remarketing in mobile’ to ‘the ad formats we can introduce in mobile ads’.
And today, I am sitting in the Inuxu headquarters during the third week of my internship and writing this blog. Working at Inuxu has been an overwhelming experience for me, I realize that my knowledge level has increased many folds. People here are always ready to help and share the vast pool of knowledge and experiences they have accumulated over years. People take a few minutes break between work and discuss on something en vogue. The evening snacks time is the best time to socialize and understand what your colleagues are up to in their professional as well as personal life.
Apart from all the things mentioned above, the thing about Inuxu that exhilarated me the most is, every employee’s demands are paid proper attention to. I’ll quote an example of today itself, a colleague of mine named Sanket got recuperated lately but due to the ongoing medicines, he was feeling hot even during this pleasant weather in Pune. When the CEO came to have a chat with Sanket, he realized Sanket’s problem and ordered for a fan to be placed right in front of his seat. I was a silent spectator to all this, but the CEO, Mr. Rohit Bagad’s kindness taught me how to manage a startup in a way that people love to have you as their boss.
After two weeks, my internship at Inuxu would end, but I am confident enough that Inuxu has definitely laid the foundation stones of my career and taught me the work ethics which I’ll carry with me wherever I go.
P.S- I look forward to work with Inuxu, in near future.
For internship opportunities at Inuxu visit the career page.